Should Portland Radio Stations be required to play 25%(?) of music that is either written and/or performed by local artists? Think Local, Buy Local.

No.

I think that would have implications that would be ugly.

What about the city of Portland providing incentives to do such a thing? That way, creativity is encouraged and not forced. The forced nature of the fairness doctrine was it's biggest downside.

We have more compelling (well ok, sometimes!) programming today, with this gone. We've also lost balance too.

I don't think consolidation is gonna go away anytime soon, but we still have people wanting to do local stuff. So, why not provide hard dollars for that and distribute the burden of it across as many people as is possible?

One dollar per year, per capita, would provide a significant pool of dollars to put toward this kind of thing. I would pay it without even thinking about it.

Taxes arrive under many names, and that's simply another one.

Sorry, no dangling any of my dollars out the window to bribe creativity (it either happens or it doesn't)... and no quotas for forced local content (and btw, how would you define "local"?)

Nope. As in many other financial equations, the marketplace will be the final determiner... let these chips fall as they may. We'll live with it.

Although radio programming continues to find new lows, mandating what stations should play is a form of censorship.
You wouldn't ever want to grant any jurisdiction such power.
Even the FCC doesn't have the tools anymore to enforce balanced news coverage. The broadcast channels have relegated themselves to the least valuable (to the consumer) medium available. Broadcast is so purely a bottom line commodity and you wouldn't even fantasize about regulating what products other businesses offer for sale, e.g. having the city pass an ordinance allowing shoe stores to only offer Nikes or regulating the groceries to only vend locally grown veggies.

Just wondering...

Exactly which government entity would pass this local content rule? Ignore the fact that only the FCC has the authority to regulate broadcasting.

Would it be the Portland City Council? In which case look for stations to license to Beaverton, Gresham and Tualatin. Multnonah County? Stations license to Washington and Clackamas Counties. The Oregon Legislature? Stations rush to license to Vancouver and Camas.

And if it were the Portland City Council, would stations have to play 25 percent crap produced inside the city limits?

Serious question: Is there really enough good music produced or written "locally" to make up 25 percent of a radio station's playlist? I doubt it.

Not to mention the rush of bands "relocating" to Portland.

We have a scenario of this type in Canada to observe and the results have mostly been on the wrong side of mediocre.
There isn't enough really good music produced in all of Canada for 35% Can-con. Much less would there be enough in one city, or three counties, to comprise 25%.

On the good side, a few decent artists get exposure they maybe otherwise wouldn't. A lot of good music gets ignored largely because of math and logistics.

The bad is second-rate music gets forced wide exposure while the little good music from a locale gets way overexposed and ran into the ground just to meet a quota. Shania Twain is an example of the latter on Canadian country stations.

The end result is radio still survives in Canada, but Canadian stations near the U.S. border are less viable. The legendary CKLW Windsor/Detroit was flat out killed by Can-con.

>>Although radio programming continues to find new lows, mandating what stations should play is a form of censorship.<<

I'll agree to a point with this.

Look at Canada - the DOC mandates a percentage of music be from Canadian artists. There's no restriction on WHICH artists - just that they be Canadian.

The topic was prompted by someone mentioning the Canada content rules. The Portland City council or Multnomah commissioners would be the likely suspects to create the regs, or even state of oregon. They have the 2% for art rules for public buildings, and they want to be the "free" wireless internet provider, and they want to exclude wallmart, so naturally one of the above mentioned government panels could easily adopt this cause to benifit the local musicians who help elect them.
Mult county has experience with figuring out who "lives" in Mult county, shouldnt be too much trouble figuring out is the music is "local" or not. The radio stations would all have to send in monthly reports to the Bureau of Musicians listing the local content. They will impose fines to violators.
As 1lossir states, there would be no resticiton on which artists get played, as long as 25% are local. The oldies station can easily comply by playing Louie Louie 5 times every hour.

At every radio station I have been I have been able to play, (with permission) some local artists. From 1997-1999, my wife and I did a syndicated radio program called "Northwest Music." It was on 4 stations. KPAM, KTZU, KHPE and KW3 in Wenatchee. It was a 30 min. specialized show that featured NW Christian artists/bands in many genres.

When my wife and I did "Rock of Ages" on Z100 we often played local or NW bands. Currently at the station in Coos Bay we'll feature local or NW artists but again using one song for a feature or produce a 30-60 min special.

I think local artists deserve to be heard on the airways, but realistically it will probably be in some kind of blocked format. When we were doing NW Music Radio, it was exciting because we could contact the artists and set up interviews and about 99 percent of the time they agreed.

I would love to host/produce another show like NW Music, but this time I’d like to get paid.

Yeah? Well, don't hold your breath for THAT check.

Randy,

Didn't CKLW have some very good years in the Detroit Metro?

I may be wrong, but what killed CKLW was more likely what killed many contemporary AM stations in the late 70's...FM.

Such a rule may interfere with federal FCC regulations, which may very well trump any local law. Are there any legal experts among us who can chime in on this?

In the early 80's, CKLW wanted to move their format to FM, but the CRTC (Canada's FCC) blocked the format change. Here's more on CKLW.

http://jam.canoe.ca/Television/2006/05/30/1605455.html

Mike- No doubt.

But I am deeply satisfied with the product we did produce for a year and half featuring local NW musicians. One of the better things I think I have been apart of in this business.

Interesting article, Steve.

CKLW, as I remember, was Detroit's Top40 in the 60's and 70's. And they sounded GREAT! (My father worked many years in Detroit and that is my connection.)

But an AM with this format, whether in the US or Canada, was destined to be doomed by the audience migration to FM. (Hence, the fact they tried to move it to FM)...

Didn't know about the mocking of Can-Con on 'LW. That is hilarious!

I will leave with a few of the famous CK phrases...

"Motor City Rock"
"The BIG 8",

and of course, "Farmer Jacks Savings time"...(time check!)

And, (I can't end this post!), why don't more stations in the Northwest use the tried and true, "time and temp brought to you by...(sponsor). It is still used in some important US markets, and why not? Added value for a client that takes about 3 seconds!

Paul,

Check out this DVD if you get a chance. It is the best radio documentary I've seen.

http://www.thebig8.net/

I'm NOT for mandatory local content, however stations should voluntarily look at the excellent pool of local music that is available.

http://www.garageband.com/search (search for bands from Oregon)

Here's a good web site and internet radio station for NW bands.

www.nw-radio.com

If Portland City Council had a wad of cash and wanted to promote localism, there's always the legal, old-fashioned way...sponsor it! Buy time on stations which excel at local content.

Unfortunately, it would probably get spent on stations which portrayed city leaders in the best light...

Local and national content laws have been tried, not only in Canada, but also in Europe, to stem the tide of being swamped by American product. It has been much less than successful, and allowed stations from other nationalities with no content restrictions (such as Radio Monte Carlo and Radio Netherlands) to thrive and develop into the biggest powerhouses in Europe.

If Portland mandated content laws, Vancouver stations would rule the airwaves; as would stations from Clackamas and Washington County. It would drive the population to internet and iPod radio much faster.

Almost every radio programmer on earth wants to play the music his audience wants to hear most. Mediocre local music will get crushed by good music from out of market performers every time.

And keep in mind, the Canadian Content laws had to be amended to permit as CanCon any tune written by, sung by (at least 1 band member), or produced by a Canadian. They found they couldn't make it work demanding all canadian performers.

People say they want to hear local bands when their brother-in-law is the lead singer, but do they really want to hear everyone else's brother-in-law's band on the radio? I doubt it.

Start with freedom of speech, you cant tell a station what it has to play.

And it would be real easy, if the city of Portland did something like that, and it was upheld to simply move station outside the city.

Agreed Dude, most local bands are just plain bad. I truly believe Portland bands were better when most of them were so-called "cover bands" playing someone elses music. Now it's a badge of honor to be all original. Trouble is most of that original music isn't worth hearing. This is a big reason I prefer the blues bands...most of them play other people's music.

It is my understanding that Canadian Content rules were abolished, or at least relaxed, 10 or more years ago.

Anyone concerned about local content pushing mediocre content to the front is not paying attention. There is already a vast array of mediocre to sub-par CRAP on radio! I quit listening to music radio a long time ago for this very reason: mostly bad artists in heavy rotation.

"... to simply move station outside the city."
The rules would be applicable to stations that have any one or more of the following in the city limits:
Studios/VTcomputers, Mailing Address, Business office, Antennas, traffic reporters.

Stations would rather move their antennas than play local content?

I think the overall sentiment being expressed here is that stations want to be compelling, otherwise they don't make the AD revenue.

Such a regulation would diminish compelling programming, in the opinions of some here, thus moving the antenna to circumvent the regulation would be an obvious move to compete.

This is a great opportunity for a local station to really shine. Do a program "live" (with slight delay to protect station from FCC Gestapo) from some venue featuring local bands. It could be sold to the venue for cash, thus producing revenue. The bands would probably be glad to play for the exposure alone. It would be hip,fresh, enhance station image, and satisfy the appetite for local music on the radio. Everybody wins.

I think that your heart is in the right place, 62kgw, in wanting to keep some local flavor to terrestrial broadcasting. That having been said, I don't think that content regulations will achieve that chiefly because:

1) "Good," "Bad," and "mediocre" has to be considered from the point of view of the listeners to a given station's format. With almost all of the pop formats on the air today, the audience's perception of who the "good" artists are is going to be influenced by how much promotion they are getting in other venues (like TV, music videos, the Internet, magazines, movies, big concerts). Artists who don't do big concerts and who aren't in these other types of media are going to be perceived as low-budget, second-tier acts by most listeners, regardless of how these artists sound. In today's media climate it is much harder to create local and regional hits than it would have been 40 years ago, when there were no cable TV music channels, no Internet, and expensive, big budget concerts were rarer.

2) In general, it is difficult to create broadcast content regulations with sufficient specificity to have the intended consequences. How do we legally define, for instance, what "local" artists are? What if you have a band that plays a lot of shows in downtown Portland, and all of their members have residences in Portland, except for the drummer who lives in Vancouver, WA? Would that be a "local" band?

The FCC regulates radio, period. If any local government tried to regulate radio content it would be overturned in federal court in a New York minute. End of discussion.

Having local DJ sing along with the record could help meet the local content requirement. For example, Last night Victoria Taft sang Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree with Brenda Lee.

Freedom of Speech is just that. You can say whatever you want. There is no law or regulation that says you have to have an audience nor is there one that says anyone has to listen.

The same should be for music. There already is an avenue/radio station in Portland that can play all the local artists it wants..... KBOO.

People will listen to a station that plays what they want to hear. Most local musicians are only good to their family and friends but are crap to most everyone else.
Look at all the folks early on on "American Idol" who believe they are good and their friends tell them they are the greatest and should be on the program. The early shows on American Idol are the best just to see those people telling how good they think they are but in reality, they are terrible.

The market works. Leave it alone.

You aren't kidding about "American Idol". The freak show at the beginning is often some great (but morbid) television.

There's also local music on KPSU.

Yeah, and look at the numbers KPSU has going for it.

Good music is not necessarily about local music. Good music comes from everywhere, not just NY, LA, or the hip town du jour. If a station played something other than what the record companies told them to play we would have a possibility of interesting music radio.

I shouldn't have to tell people in music radio this: Record companies decide who will be successful, they support them with publicity, make "arrangements" with radio stations to have their songs played, the hits are made largely through repetition. This is why truly independent artists (not "major independent" artists) have a tough time getting anywhere. Nobody will play their stuff if it isn't sanctions by a major label.

Canadian content laws are alive and well, and scheduled to get even more restrictive. Supposedly, FM's were going to have their can-con quotas upped to 40%, while Canadian satellite radio would have no can-con requirements. The terrestrial stations were screaming bloody murder about the uneven playing field.

A friend who's worked in Canadian radio on-and-off for 30 years put it best..."Canadian artists don't record 40 per cent of the world's best records."

A 40% Portland format would be interesting. For about 20 minutes. The 50th time you heard Louie Louie, or Witchi-tai-to, you'd leap from the roof.

XM (a US-based satellite system) was required by the Canadian Communications Commission to add several Canadian Content stations, including a number of French stations. (XM serves Canada through a licensee.)

But that's not the same as a 40 percent mix. Canucks can just avoid those and go for the ear candy.

Don't forget Don & The Goodtimes, "I Could Be So Good To You."

KGON put out a couple of albums of local music in the '80s.

Maybe just 25% local content period...meaning live jocks from town, local news and public affairs...not just music.

> But that's not the same as a 40 percent mix.
> Canucks can just avoid those and go for the ear
> candy.

Yup. It is important details like this that content restrictions don't deal with appropriately. I'm all for radio stations having a local "flavor" and incorporating some local talent, public affairs, and news. I just don't think that a quota-based approach would have good results. The only way that local can work well is if the station's management actually WANTS to incorporate localism into the programming.

You could also add Nu Shoos and Quarterflash to the mix, but even they would get old after a few times.

As far as I know, the only stations that could get away with deliberately adding a large amount of local material to their rotations are KBOO, KMHD, and KPSU. This is because the listenership of these stations already sees itself as a niche audience, and they don't expect their artists to be larger-than-life figures who play big arena concerts.

"Played in Oregon" hosted by Robert McBride, on KBPS-FM, provides local Classical performances:

http://www.allclassical.org/pages/programs_detail.php5?id=d539e4a83b19ed53860747 e2f95d5f6f

I believe this one hour program is also aired by KWAX (Eugene), KMUN (Astoria) and KSOR (Ashland).

Speaking specifically of Rock n Roll, every great music town of the 20th Century had a local radio station that played the local artists. Typically it was a college station with a somewhat freeform format.

I suspect that people on this board that say local music sucks are not out on a weekly basis at live local music event. It is easy to pick out the great artists and follow them and their associates. Unfortunately, the fact that there is no radio station is part of the ceiling that forces many to leave for another town where they can achieve more success. If more people knew what was out there, we would have a more lively music scene than we do.

As mentioned above, CanCon is alive and well and taking its toll on radio listenership in Canada. i.e. - how many people have stopped listening (or reduced the number of hours they listen) to Radio, period. As a Canadian who has lived in Canada and listened to Canadian radio for more than 50 years, I have had varying opinions on CanCon over the years. I have completely opposed it for more than a decade now. But I lived under the national broadcaster's (CBC) more strict CanCon rules that hit 50% at one point. Hey, I even subbed for a guy, doing his one hour jazz show in September 1972, and played 100% CanCon.

In my opinion, two things have led to CanCon's negative effect on radio listenership in Canada:
(1) Music Directors who aren't creative enough to make it work -- our local Adult Contemporary station was the first, under a very creative MD, to pass the litmus test with me: they were the first station I've listened to in the last 20 years where CanCon didn't stick out like a sore thumb. This guy would go as far as taking a "never played locally" 1988 Canadian hit and, in about 2002, played it as if it were current. He did this several times, with different 10 or more year old songs, playing them for at least 2 weeks several times a day, including on his own PM drive show every day. Typically, during dry spells when he couldn't find enough current CanCon to play in regular rotation. Although none of them ever made the station's weekly Top 10, they have now become staples as Oldies as his and other stations in town (who had NEVER played them previously).
(2) A few formats just don't have enough good CanCon to sustain the CRTC-required levels for the format, most notably Oldies, but there are others.

The only viable way to get stations to play local music is to allow them to include it as part of their local programming commitments, assuming the FCC still requires any. In Canada, the CRTC does have local programming rules, but their latest Commercial Broadcasting policy, which just came out a few days ago, doesn't, in my view, seem to have enough teeth to actually solve the problem we have of Canadian stations where only the transmitter is local -- no other facilities exist, and everything is fed from elsewhere.

As for CKLW, I do believe that CanCon was the major factor that dethroned the station. It became a huge Achilles heel as CanCon rapidly increased in percentage in the early 1970s. To play the non-CanCon hits frequently enough, the non-CanCon playlist had to be shortened, and the station became a traditional white Top 40 station, losing most of its R&B that had previously made it popular with both Top 40 and R&B listeners, effectively shutting out all competition in both genres.

Number two on my list of factors killing CKLW was its sale by General Tire -- forced by the Canadian government. Had General Tire bought a U.S. station close enough to (or in) Detroit and with something close to the same kind of signal, that also had an FM sister station, and moved the CKLW staff and everything to the new station, which they had every right to do, given that they built the station into what it was, they would have a new U.S.-based CKLW. Of course, they would have had to advertise like crazy, plus use the time the Canadian govt. gave them to sell, to do nothing but broadcast "please tune your dial to", to move their listener base over, The Big 8 would have survived. As the '70s wore on, they could have migrated their listeners to FM when the time was right.

I've had this discussion elsewhere and the key seems to be just how good an AM signal would have been required by the CKLW replacement. Despite the cost (every station has its price), buying WJR-760 (CKLW is on 800) would be the smartest. Not sure if they had an FM back then, but they could always have waited a bit before applying for a new FM if WJR didn't have one, or buying another 100KW FM'er. The transistion to FM could be gradual, depending on simulcasting rules of the day, even if it required similar but different programming on the AM and FM. Every market is different, but, when the time was right, switch the AM to Oldies. And you'd still have a winning formula today.

FYI, WJR was a clear channel 50KW that reached the West Coast most evenings (KFMB San Diego moved from 540 to 760 in the mid-'60s, but WJR was still dominant not that far from KFMB). The frequency was close enough to CKLW's 800, they could have kept "The Big 8" moniker.

All they would have had to do was take over the transmitter inside the very long tunnel (under the river) from Windsor to Detroit that CKLW had built, and they'd have it made.

Stations should be required to have local affairs program for their city of license.

For example, KRSK would have interview programs with the Mollalla city mayor and the city council. And also broadcast Molalla sports games. This will make Molalla residents aware that they have a licensed FM station.

I'd like to see them try that in Cherryville!

Adiant, LOL! The friend I quoted above is "Brother Bill" Gable!

Adiant: I believe that at the time you quote, RKO/General Tire was already mired in the deep trouble which eventually required them to sell all of their stations, splitting the proceeds with those who had challenged their licenses.

RKO/GT stations, including KFRC, KRTH, WRKO, WAXY and others continued broadcasting for many many years without receiving license renewals from the FCC, while the whole mess crawled through courts.

At the time the Canadian Govt. forced RKO to sell CK, the corporation would not have been allowed to buy or sell a station in the United States.

Why is boring local information better than interesting or compelling non-local information?

KRSK moved its city of license from Salem to Molalla in order to be closer to Portland. KRSK should pay a price for that decision.

The people of Portland (and beyond) have spoken, we want Molalla city council meetings!

Having grown up in Molalla, no you don't. Trust me on this.

Yes, if a station wants to be licensed in Molalla, (for better coverage of Portland), then they have to meets Molalla's programming requirments. Otherwise, stay in Salem.

I've heard it's a bunch of total freaks who live in Molalla. Should be interesting programming. Can anyone confirm that?